Individuals and organizations increasingly generate and store vast amounts of data. For example, some websites (such as social media platforms) may allow users to upload practically unlimited amounts of text, pictures, videos, and other types of media. The websites may store this data in servers and/or data centers such that the data may later be accessed by the users. To accommodate the ever-growing storage demands of consumers, data storage centers may often contain many thousands of storage devices. These storage devices may include a variety of types of storage media and/or hard drives. In some examples, particular types of storage devices may be designed for and/or most suitable for handling particular types of data. For example, a data-storage system may use Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard drives for lower-priority data and Serial Attached Small (SAS) for higher priority data.
Due to the operational differences between various types of storage devices, some data-storage systems may attempt to identify the type of each device within the systems before supplying power to the devices. In this way, a data-storage system may avoid damaging components of the system as a result of attempting to draw too much power. For example, a cold-storage rack may be powered by a relative small power supply. If this cold-storage power supply attempts to simultaneously supply power to multiple drives (particularly SATA drives, which typically draw a greater amount of power upon being connected to a power supply than SAS drives), the cold-storage power supply may overcurrent and/or malfunction. However, if the data-storage system detects that one or more SATA drives are connected to the cold-storage power supply, the data-storage system may be able to safely operate both the cold-storage power supply and the SATA drives.
Traditional systems for discovering types of hard drives may involve configuring software and/or firmware within the drives to communicate the device type of the drives to a controller or processor. Unfortunately, these systems may generally be slow and/or costly, in addition to requiring inconvenient modifications to individual hard drives. The instant disclosure, therefore, identifies and addresses a need for improved apparatuses, systems, and methods for detecting device types of storage devices.